I don't find anything offensive about RunningMom's posts... and would shop at her bike shop if she was anywhere around here.

I can't quite say I buy a ton from local bike shops (I'm an evil internet and craigslist shopper), but if I can't get something significantly cheaper online than it is at the bike shop, I definitely go to the bike shop, because I'd rather give them the business and I get instant gratification.

And there are lots of times I go into shops expecting to be laughed at. I called an appliance store the other day asking "for that little copper nut type thing that threads onto the heating element of my dishwasher from underneath" I can't remember what name it had, but it had hat or something. They knew what I was talking about, laughed at my description and got one for me.

I once had a parts guy at subaru laughing his *** off at me... I'd done my first oil change on my subaru, drained out all the fluid, changed the filter, and then tried to start the car and it wouldn't go in gear.... Turns out that subaru uses the same filter size & housing for their oil filter as their automatic transmission fluid filter... And i'd drained out all my transmission fluid and changed the transmission fluid filter.

So being a new car, autozone didn't have replacement transmission fluid or filters, and I had to go to the dealer... So I'm asking for new filters, explaining what happened and the parts guy was just absolutely cracking up. When he gave me the new filters, I opened up the transmission fluid filter and pointed out to him "LOOK IT SAYS OIL FILTER ON THE SIDE HERE JUST LIKE IT SAYS ON THE SIDE OF THE OIL FILTER"

He continued to giggle, but did say "Yeah, it really shouldn't say oil filter on the side of that, and it used to be they made those different colors than the oil filter.... "

I'm sure I was the idiot woman that made his day - but I can completely understand him laughing at me for it. He helpfully got me all the transmission fluid & parts I needed though.